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"To See Life Reflected": Seeing as Living in The Ambassadors by Wl I I lam Cosgrove and Irene Mathees, North Dakota State University Henry James has written extensively about the observer of life In both his fiction and his criticism. In spite of the general agreement among readers about the importance of the Jamesian observer, misconceptions continue to arise. There are two such widely held misconceptions about Lewis Lambert Strether, the Jamesian observer In The Ambassadors. One is that he is trying to recapture his lost youth through his interest in Chad and Madame de Vionnet, and the second is that his observation of them is a cozy voyeurism that serves as a substitute for actual living. Most recently, H. R. Wolff, in "The Psychology and Aesthetics of Abandonment in The Ambassadors," has adopted these two errors In making his Freudian interpretation of Strether's action in the novel. "It is as if his present mission to retrieve Chad were a chance to recover his own lost youth," he says, explaining, "Chad is symbolically acting out Strether's erotic wishes." Wolff allows James's protagonist a heightened perception and a certain creativity as an observer, but he claims that Strether's involvement falls short of a total commitment. He says, "The 'spectatorial' attitude allows Strether to participate In experience (by seeking to understand it) and to keep it at a safe distance . . . Spectatorship thus becomes a middle ground between loss and consummation."' Wolff is in the company of some noted critics. E. M. Förster says in Aspects of the Novel that Strether's vision is an ineffectual one: "He is the observer who tries to influence the action, and who through his failure to do so gains extra opportunities for observation." F. 0. Matth lessen, in Henry James: The Major Phase, finds Strether even more incompetent: "The burden of The Ambassadors is that Strether has awakened to a wholly new sense of life. Yet he does nothing at all to fulfill that sense." Laurence Hol land allows Strether more potency in his actions, but holds In common with Wolff the view of Strether as a voyeur. He says about Strether's intention to make up for his lost youth that "he wi I I and can do so only by living vicariously through the experience of younger people."2 The scene inGloriani's garden where Strether tells little Bllham to "'Live all you can*" is crucial to such interpretations and is justifiably celebrated In Jamesian criticism. Unfortunately, this scene, which climaxes the first half of the novel, Is the one most often misinterpreted. It is supposed that Strether is telling little Bilham of his wish to be young again, like Chad, or to live in the "great world," I ike Gloriani. It is also concluded that he subsequently fails to take his own advice to "'Live!'", or at best experiences life vicariously and only through others. However, It is our contention that this scene, in conjunction with little Bilham's reflection and clarification of it a few chapters later, specifies Strether's way of "living" in the second half of the novel. Through "seeing" life, particularly the relationship between Chad and Madame de Vionnet, Strether is not attempting to recapture the life he wasted when young, but he is living fully in the present as a man of fifty-five. Furthermore, Strether's "seeing" is not a compromise to experiencing, but is a unique, authentic way of life, full and complete; it Is absolute "consummation." 1. H. R. Wolff, "The Psychology and Aesthetics of Abandonment in The Ambassadors," Literature and Psychology, 21 (1971), 136, 137, 146. 2. E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1954), p. 154; F. 0. Matth lessen, Henry James: The Major Phase (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1944), p. 39; Laurence Bedwell Holland, "Virtuous Attachments," in The Expense of Vision: Essays in the Craft of Henry James (Princeton: Princeton UnIv. Press, 1964), p. 251. 204 The emissary from Wool I ett arrives on the Continent only to find his mission redefined by a radically unorthodox schooling. Strether's experiences open his eyes to the time he has let slip...

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